Today I took early leave off school to attend my aunt's crematorial service. Well, it wasn't exactly early leave, all I missed was just two periods: GP and PW.

Cremation is usually the hardest part of any funeral I guess. To me at least. Cos it's when the person is really gone, for good. At least during the service, you can still see the body inside the coffin, but after cremation, everything is reduced to a pile of smouldering ashes. Gone, just like that.

We went to Mandai Crematorium. A lovely place really, but still, it's a crematorium. The viewing hall was really small though, but I was standing in front, beside my grandma, I was afraid she might just collaspe or something. So we just stood up there and waited while the guy loaded the coffin onto a machine which will send it into the... furnace? (what do you call it?) Ah, whatever, the thingy that burns everything up. It was just so... surreal... Looking down at the coffin, sitting atop the machine as it moves across the space below... And this wooden door swings open, revealing the metal barriers (gates? doors? whatever) that soon slowly opened to allow entry for the coffin. Right before the machine sends the coffin into the raging inferno (wait, I don't think they use fire anymore), it was like the last goodbye.. the last sight.. the last words.. And poof, it's gone.

I feel so exhausted and drained now. Like I've aged a year or something. Haha... My eyes are tired and they hurt. I just practised my violin like a madman (or woman to be precise). My bow kept bouncing when I shifted from 1st to 3rd position. It made me so pissed I played that part over and over again. My arms, hands and fingers are numb now. I so have no mood to study right now. I'm out.